When an electronic item is counterfeit, an incorrect assumption may be made about a counterfeit electronic item regarding, e.g. the origins and/or quality of the item. In some worse cases, where a counterfeit item has inferior specifications and quality compared to what is assumed, the counterfeit item may cause a hazard if incorporated into critical systems such as aircraft navigation, life support, military equipment, or space vehicles. Even when not hazardous, counterfeiting of electronic items may be an infringement of the legitimate producer's trademark rights. Some examples of counterfeiting techniques discussed in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterfeit_electronic_components may include: non-functional items, sanding & remarking, blacktopping & remarking, device substitution, die salvaging, manufacturing rejects, component lead re-attachment, relabeling boxes, items whose hardware or software have been altered or tampered with by an unauthorized party, etc.
Now that the manufacturing of electronic items has been commoditized, it has become easier for a counterfeiter to introduce counterfeit items (which may be substandard) into the supply chain. Dispersed and fragmented electronics supply chains may be built on outsourced fabrication (Fabless Model) and/or outsourced testing and may comprise multiple members such as Original Design Manufacturers (ODMs), Original Component Manufacturers (OCMs), resellers, distributors and/or end-users, etc. Such supply chains may be susceptible to injection of counterfeit items, as a counterfeit item may be injected into a supply chain by or via any of its members. Counterfeit items may be injected, for example, individually as part of legitimate batches, or may be inserted, for example by way of one or more completely counterfeit batches. A supply chain member that in possession of an item and/or that is responsible for fabricating and/or testing say another item that includes the item may not always be interested in detecting that the item is counterfeit.
As the producers of counterfeit electronic items become more sophisticated in production methods, it has become more difficult to detect counterfeit items.
Existing approaches for detecting counterfeits electronic items may include the following:
In a first approach, a (unique) unit-level ID is embedded in or attached to the item. This ID may be read and validated at one or more points along the supply chain in order to authenticate the item. In the semiconductor industry, an example of such a unit-level ID may be an Electronic Chip ID (ECID) that is embedded into the item during fabrication of the item.
In a second approach, unit level test data may be collected for an item along the supply chain as well as outside the chain and compared to test data previously collected for the item and/or to recorded registration data for the item. Typically, this approach utilizes some form of a Physically Unclonable Function (PUF) and is based on collecting and comparing the PUF's response for the same item. Typically, such a function may be selected because the response of the function remains stable along manufacturing flow(s) of the item and therefore it may consistently be compared to the same initial registration response.
In a third approach, result(s) of a single test or a full suite of tests on an item may be collected and compared to result(s) of the same test or suite of tests collected for a single item known to not be counterfeit.